Peacebuilding Commission
Expected Council Action
The Council will hold a debate on 25 November to consider the third annual report of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC).
Background
The PBC’s report on its third year of activities and outcomes was formally adopted by the PBC on 4 September and is due to be considered by both the Council and the General Assembly in late November. The report noted, among other things, that the PBC focused on the four countries already under consideration from the previous year—Burundi, Central African Republic (CAR), Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone—without new countries being added to its agenda.
The PBC is mandated by Council resolutions 1646 and General Assembly resolution 60/180 to report annually to both bodies. Thus its reports are simultaneously transmitted to both upon their adoption by the PBC Organisational Committee.
In May PBC members postponed from September to November the consideration of the PBC’s annual report in those two organs in order to align it with the new timeline for election of members of the PBC’s Organisational Committee in December. (Following an understanding reached among member states on 18 December 2008, the General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/63/145 indicating that the term for members of the Organisational Committee elected from the General Assembly shall begin on 1 January. The resolution also invited other UN organs with members on the Organisational Committee to adjust the term of office of their respective members accordingly.)
During considerations of the PBC’s reports in 2007 and 2008, the Council and the General Assembly timed their respective discussions to occur close together in order to retain interest and focus, with the General Assembly’s open debate preceding the Council meeting. (This year the General Assembly will consider the PBC’s third annual report on 20 November, while the Council will take it up on 25 November.)
Key Issues
Key issues for Council members include:
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how the PBC and the Council’s work interact and relate to one another;
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the growing recognition that there cannot be neat differentiation between peacekeeping and peacebuilding and the need for serious peacebuilding activities to start much earlier than has been the case in the past; and
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coming up with suggestions by participants regarding the upcoming 2010 PBC mandate review requested by the PBC’s founding resolutions.
Council Dynamics
The PBC’s complementary role with the Council continued to develop during its third year. Regular interactions between the PBC’s chair and the Council president have been recurrent on overall policy development and on enhancing coherence in collaborative and complementary roles.
A further sign of the strengthening relationship between the PBC and the Council has been the continued regular briefings by the chairs of the country-specific configurations, especially when missions in the respective PBC agenda countries come up for review in the Council.
The increasing interface between work of the Council and the PBC has been further illustrated in the recent trend of the Council towards transforming UN missions in CAR, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, into integrated peacebuilding missions tasked with coordinating the peace consolidation activities of UN funds, agencies and programmes on the ground. All the integrated peacebuilding offices are also mandated to assist the PBC with the implementation of the PBC’s integrated peacebuilding strategic framework for each of the countries.
Council members seem likely to give some general steer, during the upcoming Council debate, on the approach on the upcoming 2010 PBC review.
Some members remain concerned that peacebuilding still lags by contrast with more high-profile conflict and crisis management tools, in terms of engaging the interest and resources of the UN. Others emphasise the need for greater coherence in peacebuilding efforts and note that this has been reflected in recent Council decisions. For instance, the penultimate paragraph of the Council’s presidential statement of 5 August on UN peacekeeping operations recognised the importance of introducing peacebuilding elements in peacekeeping operations before transfer to PBC.
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Selected Security Council Resolutions |
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Selected Security Council Documents Related to the PBC |
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Selected Security Council Presidential Statements Referring to the PBC |
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PBC Annual Reports |
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PBC Organisational Committee Members (as of October 2008) |
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Chairman of the PBC Organisational Committee |
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Heraldo Muñoz (Chile) |
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Chairs of the PBC Country-Specific Configurations |
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PBSO Head |
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